Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/12

4, profess such violent apprehensions for the publick, and represent the state of things in such formidable ideas, that I find myself disposed to share in their afflictions; although I know them to be groundless and imaginary, or, which is worse, purely affected. To offer them comfort one by one, would be not only an endless, but a disobliging task. Some of them, I am convinced, would be less melancholy, if there were more occasion. I shall therefore, instead of hearkening to farther complaints, employ some part of this paper for the future, in letting such men see, that their natural, or acquired fears, are ill-founded, and their artificial ones, as ill-intended; that all our present inconveniences, are the consequence of the very counsels they so much admire, which would still have increased, if those had continued; and that neither our constitution in church or state, could probably have been long preserved, without such methods, as have been already taken.

The late revolutions at court, have given room to some specious objections, which I have heard repeated by well-meaning men, just as they had taken them up on the credit of others, who have worse designs. They wonder, the Queen would choose to change her ministry at this juncture, and thereby give uneasiness to a general, who hath been so long successful abroad, and might think himself injured, if the entire ministry were not of his own nomination; that there were few complaints of any consequence against the late men in power, and none at all in parliament, which, on the contrary, passed votes in favour of the chief minister; that if her majesty had a mind to introduce the other party, it would